Can fish fly? Look at the photo above and to the right of this article. That is a flying fish. It doesn't look much like a fish, does it? Are those wings or fins? If it flies, how does it do that?
Those were the questions I had rattling around in my brain when I started research for this article. I found some answers. No, fish can't fly. They don't have wings, although those fins sure look like wings to me. Here's how they "fly"- they swim close to the surface of the water and use their caudal (tail) fin to increase their speed, beating their tail in the water up to 50 times a second. The tailfin is long on the bottom and shorter on the top, working as a rudder does on a boat. This tailfin helps to get their swim speed up to around 30 mph (48 km per hour). That gives the fish enough lift to rise above the water. Then they spread those wing-like pectoral fins and "fly". Their "wings" (pectoral fins) are similar in size to the wings of birds. There is no vibration of the "wings". To imagine this, think of a flying squirrel or flying lizard. Some flying fish can "fly" as far as ΒΌ mile (0.04 cm). Why do they "fly"? Why else? Predators. The predators of a flying fish are swordfish, tuna, dolphins, mackerel, other large fishes, and even birds. Frigates, birds that live around tropical seas, will swoop down and snatch a flying fish as the fish leaps out of the water. Flying fish eat things smaller than they are-small fishes, plankton, even small crustaceans. There are 52 different documented species of flying fish. They can be found in the waters around Tonga, Fiji, the United Kingdom, Azores Islands, Australia, Barbados, India, California, Caribbean, and even Canada. These are not the only places flying fish live, and for all we know there are more species yet to be discovered. There are two-winged and four-winged flying fish and black-winged fish to name just a few. Four-winged flying fish are common in the North and South Atlantic oceans, and black-winged flying fish inhabit both Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
The flying fish in the photo above is an adult flying fish. Atlantic flying fish start out as separate eggs with long stringy sticky material attached to them. The adult female flying fish lays her eggs in the water often near a bed of seaweed. As the eggs float, this stringy stuff catches on the seaweed and holds the eggs there. They stay attached and the fish embryos grow in the egg sac. When the fish are ready to hatch, they break out of the egg sac and swim for their lives! Their mother is long gone and they must find a place of safety, like under seaweed or rocks. They will venture out to eat small fish and plankton and then retreat. Young flying fish are a bit more colorful and have long flap-like whiskers that hang below the lower jaw. These whiskers fall off as the fish grow. Young flying fish are also more colorful than the adults, losing or changing color as they grow. Lengths of a flying fish can vary from 7 to 12 inches (17.5-30cm).
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